A survey on gambling in France

The French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) has recently published a national survey on the statistics relating to gambling practices in 2010.
Based on a sample of 25,034 people aged between 18 and 75 years, the study found that almost one in two French people (47.8%) played at least once during the past 12 months.
Among them, 1 in 5 could be considered an active player, meaning that he/she gambled at least €500 or 52 times during the year.
Men tend to gamble more than women.
In fact, 51.3% of men have played at least once and 15.6% can be considered active players, compared respectively to 44.4% and 8.8% for women.
The most popular games among active players are lotteries and scratch cards, which are played respectively by 75% and 62.2% of them.
These are followed by horse betting with 23.2% and by slot machines, the Rapido, sports betting, table games and poker with about 8%.
The study also established that in France there are 400,000 people who are at moderate risk and 200,000 who play excessively, representing respectively 0.9% and 0.4% of the adult population.
These results show that France has done quite a good job with regards to responsible gambling.
In fact, with only 1.3% of players who seem to be at risk, France ranks behind not only United States and Australia, which top the list with 5%, but also Italy, Canada, Belgium and Great Britain, which follow with 2%.